Summary
A story of a spiritual quest is set in the Middle Ages. Brother Narcissus, a monk at Mariabronn Abbey, serves as an adviser to Goldmund, a student at the Abbey School. Goldmund is attracted to the monastic life, but Narcissus suggests that he is unsuited for it and urges him to pursue a life in the world. Goldmund leaves the Abbey and becomes a woodcarver. Many years after he has achieved fame as an artist, he returns to the Abbey to die. The duality of body and mind, and the inevitable conflict between them, is at the center of the novel.
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Media Reviews
"...a poetic novel unique in its purity and fascination..." -- Thomas Mann
"What makes this short book so limitlessly vast is the body-and-soul-shaking debate that runs through it, which it has the honestly and courage not to resolve: between flesh and spirit, art and scientific or religious speculation, action and contemplation, between the wayfaring and the sedentary in us." -- John Simon
-- New York Times Book Review
"Hesse's habitual dualism is trivial academic rubbish; rubbish derived from a truth. perhaps, but still rubbish....Narcissus and Goldmund and all they stand for are all mixed up together, bound together in their opposition. But despite his faults, Hesse is a graceful and generally unpretentious artist." -- Stephen Koch
-- New Republic
"[This translation] is close to perfection....The panoramic sweep and pervasively lyrical atmosphere give Narcissus and Goldmund a unity that absorbs its technical flaws. Oedipal situations, homosexuality, hermaphroditism, and necrophilia lurk skin-deep under the pages, but Hesse lifts the contrapuntal play of conflicting forces onto a plane as close to music as words will come. What lingers in the reader's mind is a melancholy melody, a romantic lied full of wanderlust for a trip into the id."
-- Saturday Review
Bibliographic Details
Publisher: Picador USA
Published date: 2003
Edition: 1th edition
Size: 5.5 x 8.5 inches
Weight: 0.25 pounds
Pages: 320
Publisher's Notes
Leaving behind the medieval monastary of Mariabronn at the urgings of his instructor, Narcissus, Goldmund embarks on a fantastic journey to recapture his past and discover his future. Reprint.
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